


layover one

by shaykreth



Series: connecting flights [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adoribull - Freeform, Getting Together, M/M, Romantic Comedy, sass and more sass
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-04 02:25:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2905802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shaykreth/pseuds/shaykreth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at the in-between moments for Dorian and Iron Bull as requested by my darling. // "We are four days into the western desert of Orlais. The transitions of the Inquisition’s advance have been unkind to my everything. I have never felt more useful, more worked, more alive. If only the company were better."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. chapter one

**Author's Note:**

> Dorian/Iron Bull, T for language only. No warnings apply. Slight spoilers if you haven’t completed Bull’s big companion quest, hints at Dorian’s but nothing specific. The context is useful, though.
> 
> Written for my dearest, who read and watched me improve the first bit of fanfiction I’ve written in probably 8 years. Prompt was the “what happens at the in-between” for Dorian and The Iron Bull.

_We are four days into the western desert of Orlais._

_The transitions of the Inquisition’s advance have been unkind to my everything._

_Ever-damp swamps to windy plains to cold fortresses were unpleasant enough. Finding myself now in a dry desert featuring frigid nights and burning days has the effect of skin across my knuckles cracking while I sleep and my feet spawning blisters on top of other blisters. Sand is finding crevices I never knew I had, skin turning to rashes_ where _covered and sun blisters where exposed._

 _I have never felt more useful, more worked, more alive. If only the company_ were _better._

Adaar never returned a full bottle to Skyhold’s modest wine cellar. Evenings on the move were always spent huddled around a fire while a flagon of vinegared wine passed from hand to hand.

Dorian watched as the Inquisitor huddled with Sera (who had eyes only for her, and ears only for mischief planned in pidgin nonsense) on the far side of the fire. They were miles away from the rest of the motley travel crew.

Dorian leaned towards the fire while he sipped the particularly vicious brew (found in a cave, full of spiders, leads to a lovely bouquet) from a tin cup. Both warmed him.

“Dorian.”  He felt the deep rumble of The Iron Bull as he spoke, felt the shift in the sand as he moved to sit. He was larger than life. Large like death.

He offered the offending bottle to Dorian, who shook his head and swirled his cup. “Too much already, I’m afraid,” he said, the liquid thicker than any alcohol had a right to be. “It’s mostly sand, I think.”

The Iron Bull’s lopsided smile was softer than when he and Sera laughed over Dorian’s thorough application of lotion to his dried hands. Alcohol smoothed the edges off Bull, softened the rigidity and made more pliant his face, his shoulders, his muscles.

He laughed. “You ‘vints have such tender tastes. You should come with me to the bar at Skyhold sometime. They’ve a selection to put hair on your chest and burn it right back off again.”

“Is that where all yours has gone?” Dorian responded, clipped.

“Nah, I shave every night just for you.” A flex of Bull’s muscles insured Dorian’s eyes stayed on his face. Not that they had wandered, never that. Bull thoughtfully rubbed his chin. “Not the face though. I think you like the roguish look.” Was there no safe place for eyes to rest?

Dorian groaned. “You make so many assumptions about your own magnetism. I would recommend a perspective change, but I understand how difficult that is for your people. What with being so tall. And opposed to perspectives.”

“Yeah, that’s a little something we learned from Tevinter. The masters of undercutting the underdog.”

It was familiar ground for them, the insults a natural reflex of one talking to the other. It was an understanding between them, while on the move and forced into shared quarters. The Iron Bull has his Chargers and Dorian has his studies to keep them busy at Skyhold. How Bull found time to peruse the (however potentially disgusting) alcohol collection at the tavern was astounding. Either way, it kept them from crossing paths. Better for all involved, really.

Dorian sighed. ‘An effort is all I’m asking for...’

“You and I know it is a fault shared by both our peoples.”

The Iron Bull, seemingly unperturbed by this change in mood, nodded and chuckled to himself. “Yeah. You’re not wrong.” He shrugged. “I guess that’s why we left.”

Dorian paused. He knew the wound was fresh on Bull. It was old for him, a wound that had already scabbed, healed. It only hurt when it rained. Bull’s was a bleeding, festering thing, something covered with bandages when stitches were necessary.

Cautious. “Do you miss it? The Qun?”

“The merciless brutality of bathing in innocent Tevinter blood? State-sanctioned orphan murder? Oh, yes. All the Tevinter blood I find these days is tainted with evil or… whatever it is that oozes out of Corypheus.” Bull grinned, but it was pained. “Yeah. I do. It’s hard not to.”

Dorian was quiet for a few seconds before he spoke. Bull treated humor as a numbing agent. It only hid the damage.

“I don’t. Miss Tevinter, I mean.” He shifted, stretching his legs towards the fire. “I don’t miss my family, or the politics, or the expectations. I don’t miss…” He made a vague gesture with his hands. “The lack of anything real. Tevinter, at it’s best, is all appearances. It’s a shiny veneer on a pile of shit; gild it all you like, it still smells.”

“That’s a crude analogy for you, pretty boy,” Bull observed, raising an eyebrow at Dorian.

“If the shoe fits, etcetera.” Another slow swallow, another measured answer. “There is something rotten there, Bull, something not rooted in our wars, our racism, our elitism. The Chantry may have the right of it. We are flawed to our core.”

Bull grunted as he took a pull straight from the bottle (another solid reason to stay away from it, by Dorian’s estimate). “Reflective shit.”

“Excuse me?” Dorian bristled, unsure of the intent. Bull was damnably hard to read, his face angles and scars in the dying fire.

“We reflect what we were raised in.” He took another drink. “You are a shiny shit, Dorian.”

“And on that note, I give up.” Dorian poured the sludgy drink onto the sand, throwing a disgusted look at The Iron Bull. “I try to be accommodating, yet you twist the words still. The Herald, bless her, cannot fault me for trying and failing. Your oafishness is clearly too much to overcome.”

Dorian stood, turning to his several-paces-back bedroll. His rant continued as he prepared himself for an uncomfortably cold night.

“She did inquire, I’ll have you know, into our ability to work together, given your unwarranted - not to mention completely unwanted - advances and my distrust - which I now feel is very well earned - and I told her I would try.” He snatched his waterskin from his pack, abandoned by his useless footwear. “I tried, you damnable lummox.”

Bull sat, still, listening. “Dorian,” he rumbled, voice low and pitched for his ears only. “You might be overreacting.”

“Oh, overreacting, he says. Yes, that’s me, always overreacting in regards to my ‘footsies’ or the quality of wardrobes or the availability of actual, drinkable wine--”

“Dorian, will you listen to me?” His voice was firm but belied by laughter behind it. “Let me finish before you hop on a soapbox. With your wounded little footsies.” He held up placating hands. They were so large, made for breaking, now juxtaposed in a position of peace, stillness.

Dorian obliged, but he was nothing if not prepared to lob something potentially fiery across the few feet separating them.

“Look. Pretty sure I’ve never met a peacock prouder than you. But that’s just surface. You’re as broken as the rest of us.”  His voice took on a tender quality, mirth dying in favor of something more gentle. “My tama taught me what it meant to be a warrior and a spy. The self is given purpose through the Qun, practically can’t exist without it. I am not my self, she told me. I am Ben-Hassrath. I am Qunari.” Bull let out a barking laugh. “That’s what you ‘vints like to think of as a loss of freedom, but we… they like to think of as the ultimate freedom.”

“I don’t need a lesson in Qun philosophy,” Dorian said, “get to the point already.”

Bull’s lips quirked up in a tight smile. “Alright, fair. I … made the decision to save the Chargers. That wasn’t part of being Ben-Hassrath, being Hissrad. Now I was… a word, without a definition. I lost what had defined me, at least at one point in my life.” He paused, thoughtful. “I don’t think that it has actually defined me for many years now. I am The Iron Bull. That is self now.”

Bull looked at Dorian, uncomfortably direct. “That’s something I think you can relate to.”

Dorian nodded his head slowly, giving Bull the point, looking down and breaking the eye contact. Too close. Too intimate.

Bull’s gaze drifted, moving from Dorian to Adaar to Sera. “We’re all a little fucked up.” He shook his head ruefully. “Tal-va-fucking-shoth for real. Adaar’s hand is… well, you know. And Sera is a couple of slices short of a loaf.” He turned back to Dorian as he scratched behind a horn. “We’re a fucking mess, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Ah. Well. I suppose we’re all part of a latrine trying hard to be a gold mine.”

Bull laughed, a real one. “Some of us trying harder than the rest, big boy. Come to the tavern with me when we get back. Get out of the library, have a drink with me and the Chargers.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. We’re the shiniest shits in the bunch.”

Dorian moved back to his bedroll, continuing the effort of creating comfort where none existed. He felt warmer now, like something in him had softened. “I’m regretting the analogy now.”

“That’s the only thing you’re regretting?”

“I’m regretting that choice of fabric for your circus pants. But that’s really more pity than regret.”

“I’ll take them off if you want.”

“Urgh.”

 


	2. chapter two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More fireside chats with Dorian and Iron Bull.

_Night never creeps close in the Western Approach. Dark though it may be, the moon is given an_ unobstructive _view of the land to throw her light. It’s quite breathtaking, if I’m being honest.  
_

 _We finally reached the oasis today. Despite the massive amount of_ Venatori _, spiders, and a giant, it’s actually been fairly relaxing. All things considered. Semiha hopes to explore the ruins a bit further, but she’s enough sense to realize the caravan needed a rest._

_The camp is right next to the water. It’s cool, smells lovely, and, most importantly, is in the shade. I never thought I’d ever miss a tree so much. Strange what travel does to a person._

 

Dorian sat away from the rest of camp, eyes closed as he leans back against the cooling rock.

The waterfalls make a pleasant sound to accompany this rest. He has a belly full of ale and food, the dried meat and cheese and bread of travel but, for all that it is delicious simply because now he can rest.

He hears The Iron Bull walk up to his sitting spot, feels him sit down nearby. He smells like travel, a sweaty, dusty scent, and he is a noisy creature - breathing deep and satisfied, leather of his armor creaking as he settles down.

“Hey, Dorian,” Iron Bull began, “I wanted to talk to you for a minute.”

Dorian lifted a hand, waving it at him in a flippant gesture of “whatever, sure, go ahead”, not moving from his rather comfortably position.

“Right. So. I can’t get a really good read on you, and I need to know if I am as irritating as you act like I am.”

Dorian smiled and laughed. “You are every bit as irritating as I say.”

“Ah. Got it. I’ll lay off then.”

Dorian opened an eye to look at him. “Really? It’s that easy?”

Bull shrugged a little uncomfortably. He was a mass of gray in the moonlight, face angled and expression hidden. ‘He is enormous. I should be more afraid of him than I am.’  

“Hey, I know I can come on a little strong. It’s why I’m asking. I can’t tell if you just enjoy fucking around with me or if it’s actually bothering you.” Bull reached up to scratch at the base of one of his horns. “Cassandra’s good with it. Wanted to make sure you are, too.”

Dorian sighed a little. “Ah, thank you for giving me the opportunity to shut you up. But If it’s all the same to you, I can’t let Cassandra carry the burden of your attention alone.”

“I never said that.” Bull chuckled to himself, a rumbling sound that shook him. “It’s not really all the same to me.” He turned his head to look at Dorian, expression strange and yet familiar at the same time.

Dorian shifted, understanding. ‘That is a gaze of want,’ his brain filled in helpfully. When operating incognito in Tevinter, one must develop a keen sense of what desire looks like on another man’s face, however brief the expression lasted. Dorian was good at it, something he found both depressing and satisfying.

He was used to seeing that gaze in tanned faces, over wine, during dinner, while shopping. He was used to seeing it in the privacy of a rented room, drapes heavy and hiding, keeping the fast, frantic deed from view of those who might judge and, most importantly, talk. He remembered seeing that gaze in a specific face over and over, many times, a kind, dark face with soft lips and hard eyes. A face that left when commanded, before Dorian could ever _ask_ …

It was a look mirrored in The Iron Bull’s face, but there was nothing brief or subtle to it. He gave Dorian plenty of time to look, to know and see the desire he felt. There was no fear of being witnessed.

Dorian coughed a little, looking away. “Well, yes, that’s also fine. Really, it’s entirely necessary for me to highlight the base nature of your savage people to the rest of the Inquisition.”

“Can’t help it you’re pretty.”

The moment should have passed. Dorian was ready to dismiss it; he acknowledged it, he _knew_  the invitation had been laid but he was not ready to act upon it - not now, likely not _ever_ , but… Bull’s gaze had _softened_. There was an honesty in his openness, something he would never find in a hundred years of Tevinter-style liaisons.

“It’s fine, Bull,” Dorian heard himself say, soft and pitched low.

Finally, satisfied, The Iron Bull nodded and returned to the lopsided grin Dorian found natural for the lines and grooves of his face.

“Did you see the way that ‘vint split in two when I got him in the neck earlier?”

“No, thankfully.”

“You missed a show! One piece went cartwheeling up, the other just stood on its own for - “

“That’s quite enough, thank you!”


End file.
